A few years back, my homebrew club, The Central Valley Brewers Guild, ran a club experiment where we all brewed the same pale ale recipe and then a couple months later brought our brews to a gathering to compare results. The idea was to see how our process affected the final brew, rather than the recipe. The results varied quite a bit, showing that how you do things while brewing has as great an effect on the resulting beer as do the ingredients. It was eye opening!

I really enjoyed the version I brewed and I’ve brewed it several times again in an effort to have a non-aggressive pale ale on tap for visitors. The last time I brewed it, Don Oliver, Brew Master of Dust Bowl Brewing, was kind enough to share five ounces of Galaxy hops pellets for dry hopping. I had really enjoyed his Galaxy Pale Ale and particularly his Red IPA, both of which rely on Galaxy hops, so I was hoping that dry hopping with them would bring some of that character to my pale ale. It did – and it was a hit! I served up a keg at our annual neighborhood Halloween party this year, and revelers blew the keg! I’ll be staggering the dry hops over several days and this time maybe backing down an ounce to reduce some of the fruitness the Galaxy hops bring to the ale.